A site of random things and thoughts from a random Emily.

my biggest anxiety with arlo turning 1

Next week Arlo turns one. In two weeks we’ll be celebrating with a birthday party and cake.

I started out a little stressed about the party itself, spent some time worrying what presents to get a child who doesn’t know what a present is, had fleeting thoughts of if he’d be walking when he’s one… Then I got to talking to Tyler about dessert at the party, namely cake.

And I realize am most worried about…wait for the crazy…GIVING HIM CAKE!

It’s so much sugar and unhealthiness, and nothing vegetable-related. What if he’s completely addicted to it?? What if this just starts a spiral of sugar all day, where his teeth rot out before they grow in and his body turns into a little sugar-craving monster full of temper tantrums and not wanting healthy food or to sleep at night. (HA! Tricked you on that last one, he already doesn’t like to sleep at night.)

A couple of months ago we looked through Mason and Milo’s first year scrapbooks, and do you know what I found? Milo was eating fruit snacks like it was no big thing at 10 months. Basically I was feeding my child globs of sugar before he had teeth.

And I’m not sure what is crazier, the fact that I used to do that or the fact that I care so much now about not doing it. After all, Mason and Milo are [mostly] ok, right? They didn’t twitch too bad when we eliminated sugar from their diet for a month.

Seriously, people, what is crazier? I really can’t decide. I also can’t decide when I started caring so much about this. I mean, I remember when the boys were younger I could tell too much sugar affected them. And for a good while I was pretty on top of only letting them have one “treat” a week–which included things like fruit snacks, a candy bar, or having a dessert after dinner.

But then they got older, it seemed to affect them less, and all sugar rules went out the window–add to that I married a total sugarholic who loves to keep things like Oreos stocked in our cupboard. At the same time, I’ve started eating WAY healthier than the Emily of yesteryear. My go-to family meals before used to be Hot Pockets and chicken nuggets, and my “fancy meal” had canned nacho cheese, canned chicken, and torn up tortillas as the main ingredients…

But somewhere between then to now I changed the way I viewed food, or healthy food at least. And then Arlo was born into this healthier, Google-infested world, and… viola! Crazy Emily 2.0 happened.

And part of me wonders if the healthy baby stress will slowly fade. Or will Arlo be the change I wish to see in my food world?